F1: Hamilton wins again in China!

Looks like the proverbial fortune cookie has provided good fortune to Lewis Hamilton and the Mercedes AMG Petronas squad as Hamilton scored his third successive win in Shanghai, China. Nico Rosberg meanwhile settled for second, 18 seconds adrift from the dominating Hamilton, while Fernando Alonso gave Ferrari fans something to cheer about by crossing the finish line in third. Red Bull’s Daniel Ricardo once again finished ahead of Sebastian Vettel for fourth.

As the lights went out, Hamilton blazed to the front, but it wasn’t smooth sailing for Rosberg as he endured a sluggish start from the second row before clipping the Williams of Valtteri Bottas at the first corner, dropping him to seventh. That also damaged Rosberg’s car which was unable to send the much needed telemetry to his team, leaving him to relay data manually from his dashboard all afternoon.

While Alonso gave much needed motivation to Scuderia Ferrari with his third place finish, Kimi Raikkonen endured a frustrating race with his eighth place finish, a minute behind Alonso. McLaren’s luck continued to deteriorate as both drivers finished out of the top ten, while Williams’ Felipe Massa was luckless as his disastrous pitstop put an end to his points scoring position.

However, a bizarre event took place on the closing stages of the race when the official waved the chequered flag two laps prematurely, which meant the race ended on lap 54 rather than the supposed 56. That sadly negated Kamui Kobayashi’s last-lap pass on Marussia rival Jules Bianchi for 17th position, while the remaining results remained status-quo.

The F1 circus returns to Europe with the Spanish Grand Prix on 11 May.